Help Club Blog

The Second Glance that Ties Your Hands- Part Two

http://helpclubformoms.com/second-glance-ties-part2/

“Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the LORD Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful. Malachi 2:15-16.

“Adultery occurs in the head long before it occurs in the bed.” ~Chuck Swindoll

Jesus longs to meet with you today! The truth is, He is with you always. (Matthew 28:20.) He never is away from you. But there is something special about setting aside time in our busy lives where we can simply be still, read the Bible, pray and learn from God.

Read Malachi 2:10-16. Write verses 15-16 in your journal. Record them on your phone and listen to them over and over throughout your day. Let this truth from God soak into your heart. He is your Helper. You are not alone. No matter what you may be facing today, God is big enough to handle it and loves you more than you could ever know!

Pray and ask God to speak to your heart today about temptation. You may not struggle in this area, but know someone who does. Take a moment to lift her up in prayer. If you have a friend who has confided in your about a temptation, do what you can to encourage her to flee from temptation and to run away! Offer to connect her with a Christian counselor or pastor. Pray, pray, pray for her and her marriage. The Lord is with her!

The Second Glance that Ties Your Hands Part Two

I’ve always made friends with guys easier than with girls. I liked being outside, playing games and listening to rock music more than I liked dolls, primping, or country love songs. That tendency worked well for me up until the age where we starting realizing mutual physical attraction.

Even though I knew that being close friends with guys at the dating age rarely worked out well, I found myself in a “friend-lationship” at the age of 20. Again, the awkwardness put me in a situation I hated. I knew I needed to stop leading him on, but I didn’t want to lose his friendship.

“How did I end up here AGAIN?” The question reverberated through my conflicted heart. We all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The road to my sad situation was paved with an innocent friendship.

Little girls don’t dream of getting pregnant at 16, dropping out of high school, and raising a child alone.

No young man sits in a job interview thinking, “I think I’ll get involved in a corporate embezzling scandal and go to jail for the next 20 years.”

Neither would we women stand at the altar, our lips repeating “I do,” but our crossed fingers telling the truth, “I’ll meet someone else in a few years.”

But it’s never that simple.

Infidelity doesn’t begin in the bedroom with a strange man.

Infidelity is insidious.

Infidelity begins at the gym with a straying eye, admiring a nice physique a little too closely. It begins at work with an extra-sweet “Thanks for taking care of that, it was so kind of you.” It begins with the whispered justification, “It’s just a text message, no big deal.”

“No big deal.” … Or is it?

Proverbs 24:33-34 says, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come upon you like a bandit.”

“A little smile, a little laugh, a little meeting at a coffee shop to go over ‘work stuff’—and infidelity will come upon you like a bandit.”

Jesus says in Matthew 5:28, “Whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

We take this to mean it’s a sin to even look at someone other than our spouse with lust. But perhaps Jesus here alluded to the insidious nature of infidelity. A few verses later in Matthew 5:29-30, he says, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” He’s telling us here that merely looking at another with lust puts us on a path to a very undesirable destination. It begins with a look.

The world would call me extreme. “Come on, you mean you expect me not to talk to guys at the gym? It’s just an innocent conversation!” But that’s the difference between law and wisdom.

Let me ask you a question. What is your marriage worth to you? What is it worth to God? To what lengths will you go to protect it?

My marriage is worth indifference—even coldness—to other guys at the gym who try to strike up a conversation. It’s worth letting go of my guy friendships from before. It’s worth prayer and introspection. It’s worth everything.

Questions to Ponder

Pray and ask God to reveal the unwise relationships you may (or may not) have in your life. Ask him to show you how to protect your marriage.

Ask God how you can “Flee” from temptation. Pray and ask God to help you, then run!

Faith-Filled Idea

Learn your husband’s love language. Pray and ask God how to relate to him in the way he feels loved.

Plan to do something special for your husband this week. Make his favorite dinner, run an errand for him, or give him a massage. Pray and ask God how to love your man more intentionally.

My name is Christie Frieg, formerly a member of the Weakly clan, until I joined the Frieg's when I married my soulmate, Alex. I am a musician, a reader, a thinker, and a software engineer. I love few things more in life than curling up with a cup of coffee and reading my Bible in the mornings. If I could achieve one feat in my life, it would be to inspire everyone around me to see God as so much bigger than our boxes, more beautiful than our wildest dreams. I want to inspire awe of God in others, an awe that leads to adoration, worship, and lifelong devotion, even as I come to know him myself more every day.

6 Comments on “The Second Glance that Ties Your Hands- Part Two”

Finally just reading this! Amazing article Christie. My husband and I have been blessed to establish this idea of “it all starts in the mind” at an early stage in our relationship. Praise God for that, because now there is an openness and honesty in our covenant eyes as a Godly couple. BUT it’s always a good reminder. Something that needs to be talked about more in marriage for sure! Grateful for HCFM 🙂

For the Faith Filled Idea section, maybe you could talk about learning our husband’s love languages and how to relate to & serve him better in that way? Just an idea…something about how to pour into our men would be good…

Regarding how to survive infidelity, I don’t have much good advice. But I know that when we are ready to forgive, John Bevere’s book “The Bait of Satan” is extremely helpful in teaching how to truly forgive and love the unlovable, backing up all its points with lots & lots of scripture.
Love,
Kristi